Like a rainbow

I am not touching the topic of Mother's day with a 40' pole right now. Moving on.


This week, with a lot of encouragement and support from my friends, local community, and most family, I decided to apply for a summer college programme abroad. I would be gone between 4-6 weeks, depending on how I can set things up before I would leave.
I am hoping to find out soon if I was accepted (it's a very selective Women's College) and if I can qualify for some scholarships to help out. I would still need to raise funds to go, but...

This is the first time since Wash died, and certainly the first time in perhaps the last 4 or so years I have felt like I desire to go back to a college environment and learn. Since Wash was sick with brain cancer, I have felt zero desire or goals to go back working forensics. To go back to bones, and skulls- of which all morph into his- to go back to Death, really.
No. I've spent too much of my life already in and around Death.
This is a chance at something new.
This is a chance for me to do some self-exploration.
To see what knowledge still excites me, what stokes my personal fire.

I can earn credits that can transfer back to the US. I can be in a (temporary) new place. I can clear my head, focus my mind, distract the pain in my heart.

Now, I'd have to be accepted first. I have to make sure my house here is taken care of, either house/cat sitting or subletting. It is one thing to go away for a month, it is a negative thing for me to come back and not have the home I have been living in with my husband since 2008. This much I have already talked to my Hospice doctor about. Now, there is a hope that perhaps when I come back I will be stronger personally to really start to not just sort through, but figure out where Wash's things and stuff will go. I have about a dozen packages I still need to send to his friends of his things. But, I am still letting Future Tashi deal with that, as right now I see a mountain of his clothes that will never be put back on his body. Fabric with a faint scent of him. Fraternity and Drama/Theatre shirts. Dress clothing.

His custom ties. Those I know what he wanted done with, how to get them to his friends, but it does not make it hurt less to do.


I had a moment last week. I was having a conversation (in my head) with someone, and my narrative said- "When I was married..." not "...I am married."
I think this was the first time my brain has phrased it for me. My world stopped last year, but things move. The Earth still spins, I still age, my cells grow and die, plants flower and die, and lives just move.

I had a Phoenix ComicCon brochure come to my house. Addressed to Wash, of course.
It was like a punch to my chest, all air gone out of me in a second.
It really sank in, Wash will never see another 'Con. I will never get to dress up or Cosplay with him again.
I am the one left. I carry the burden. I carry his voice, his desires, but in a way he will never see.
Too much emotion overwhelms my system and I just emotionally shut down. It hurts less that way.


Back to topic. I need to make sure my cats will be loved after while I am away (if I am accepted.). Leto really has not gone more than a day or two without human contact his whole life. He is a Comfort Cat, and he wants to be where he can get pets, attention, and love from other humans. Aelphie I am also worried about. She really only ever bonded with myself, Wash (after some years), and a great friend from college - and his sweet cat. I don't know if leaving her at my house, with me gone, is good for her, or if it would be worse to move her somewhere for a month where she can have more attention and less Leto/kitten escapades.
I worry about the TARDIS urn. I worry about leaving it, I worry about moving it. Anxieties and worry.
The cats are the closest thing to children I will ever have. Leto is the only living connection left to Wash- that is not me. (in my house)

I worry if I can raise the funds to go, to cover airfare and the costs for my home as well. It will be more than 7 more years before I will be able to get a loan, or not need a co-signer for anything. That puts me in an odd place for a 26 year old. Even harder trying to get really any job to get me out of the house, earning, paying bills. Part of me hopes this trip might help with that though, making new contacts and friends, or even just being able to say that I've done something in 4 years besides caregive (unpaid, thanks Arizona!) for my husband.

This is a chance to do something for Tashi. Not 'Wash and Tashi', not in his memory or honour, but for myself. Who I am, without him.


Wash always supported learning. We had a plan. He was willing to work to pay for me to finish my schooling once he was graduated and had done his Taliesin internship. I was willing to work and wait for him to finish. There was a plan, we both supported. We had even planned that if we had a child while I was in Grad School he wanted to be the Work From Home Dad. He wanted me to focus on school, and my desires. This I know. He would have supported me in this. He would be happy I have at the least, applied.



This feeling? It is not Depression. It is not Grief. It is like a horrid hybrid monster of the worst of both of them. It sneaks up in the quiet and calm before sleep. It strikes at a song, a moment, a memory.
It fills the nose with smells that trigger memories of happy or sad moments. There is no control. There is no bargaining to stop. It does not listen to pleas or rationality. It rears up, an angry wild stallion. It runs deep inside, pounding hoof beats to match broken heart-beats. It is tears at a kitchen sink that do not come from onions. It is a weight so heavy the body literally drops. It forms a Compassion, a desire to not wish it on any other human; though most every single human will experience it. It is the pain and darkness of a mile underwater, a place sunlight does not- cannot penetrate. It is the creeping darkness that whispers over and over and over- the worst broken record- "Is there really any Hope left?"

This is the feeling I have and fight every second, hour, day. I do not think English has a word comparable.
I wonder who else is aware of this? Who else knows this feeling? Who else knows this is what I am living with?

There is a lot for me to ponder lately. I have been trying to focus on the positive ponderings, less on the negative ones. It is a battle. Every day. For me, time does not ease up. Time allows no real respite inside my head.

That is where I have been, Dear Readers. That is where I am.

Doves Cry

I am angry.

I don't know if this is a passing thing, a "phase" as it were, or if this is my new state of being.

I have a small cold. I'm not certain how my low grade fever is effecting me.



I am angry.
I am angry there is no space for me.
I am angry there is no safe place for me to talk, to someone.
I am angry that Hospice has to be considered part of the "safety net".

I am angry at my friends, the people I love. I am angry and love them at the same time. It's a painful contradictory feeling.
I am angry at life. I am angry at the inherent unfairness. Of it all.

I am angry that every week I see more friends have birthdays that place them at or right next to my age.
I am angry that every week now someone new is engaged, married, or pregnant. In about 6 months I suppose I'll be angry at all the births around his death date.

I am angry at myself and society. I am angry that I will never be pregnant again. That I will never carry life, that my husband will never live on. That I have no more family with his death. He was my family unit, and now it is singular, and I'm angry that I had so little time with him.
I am angry at the milestones I have and will miss.

I am so angry at society for telling me I am worthless if I do not reproduce.

I am angry at society for telling me I am worthless for being poor. I am angry when people say it is my own fault, my own choices. I am angry when someone implies Wash wanted or asked for terminal brain cancer. 

I am angry at myself because I cannot be fully happy for my friends.
I am angry at comments about couples trying to get pregnant for under 6 months, and how upset/sad/frustrated they are. I am angry when those same people then immediately get pregnant.

I am angry that I have no one to talk to.

I am angry at my best friend for dying, for leaving me. I am angry at myself for that very thought. For not being happy he is not in pain, like he wished.


I am angry when I stare at his TARDIS urn every day and night and wonder if anyone else remembers him?

I am angry that he died before so many wonderful things.
I am angry he will never see the Doctor Who 50th Anni. special. Or be part of it in some way, which he would have; if he had not had the cancer and was still alive.

I am angry at being told I have to change so many things.
I am angry that so many things will change and have regardless.

I am angry that I can remember the last hug I had from him, that I remember it was the last.

I am angry that I have to live a future without him. I am angry that I wake up every morning, and he does not, will not.

I am angry and it feels like a hot weighted stone upon my heart.

I am angry that I feel so utterly useless.
I am angry how disposable I feel. I am angry at the daily implication that my existence is worthless- or worse, costing of others.

I am angry, and so sad.

Streaking

I feel like I am turning into a character from a Stephen King novel.

It is cold and wet outside; the sky covered in clouds.
I am burying myself in blankets and socks. Also, a warm cat or two to snuggle with.

So much writing. I need a new ribbon for my typewriter. [Smith-Corona Corsair Deluxe portable]
Actually, my online writing is done on the computer, the typewriter is just my old, old friend; I think I got mine back in 1990? Thereabouts.

However, the overall mood, the same themes as are in the books I've read until they became cannon, it feels a bit odd to suddenly be living it.

I don't really want to see anyone right now, no company. No distractions.
My downstairs is finally closer to being cleaned and organized in a way my Asperger brain enjoys and can function in. Part of my brain is already doing the same to my upstairs level, but the actual work there is harder; the bedroom is still the last room where there are things left that he moved and touched and put into place.
It is harder to be 'ready' to change that. Ready, ha. As if such a thing could happen in a human life. Rationality can only go so far, even I could only prepare for some of what was to come.

Cleaning the bedroom changes it. Changes it TO a bedroom. It started that way, when we first moved here in 2008. Once he got sick though, it changed. We slept there, yes, but being bed-bound changes so much. The mood of the room was not the same. The items in it. The sounds. The colours. The photos and objects on the walls, even.
It was a place of sickness, even by accident. By proxy.
Now to me, it still holds the strongest memories, and the majority of my reluctance to change it.

Words and thoughts, even lucid dreams rob me of any real 'rest'. My thoughts have become a perpetual motion machine, spinning ever forward and back. Flipping between some social order of "normal" to be outside of my house and in social situations, to hysterical uncontrolled laughter at something that I find funny or he did. I hear his voice less in my head, but a stronger compulsion to 'talk' to his TARDIS urn.
I miss his body, but in strange ways. I just miss how he felt pressed against me. I miss having my head and my ear line up with his heart when we were physically close. I miss kissing the part of his neck where it met his hairline. I miss how his ears were always cold, even in the Arizona summer.

Mostly it comes at night, when I am alone in the bedroom-that-is-not-a-bedroom, sleeping in a bed that feels half empty.
It is different because there was no choice involved. He did not choose cancer. He did not choose to die young. He did not choose to have a tumor remove his memories and change his being.
He only chose how to live.

Busy days help me. Busy days though, cannot keep out the thoughts. The questions.


The world is so open to me, but the person I want to share everything of myself with is gone.

Is it still a desire if there is complete certainty it will never happen?

Spoilers, Sweetie

Kevin Pratt-King came home today; for the last time.

As per his wishes he will have a part of himself shot off in rockets(details to come); the rest he wished to travel in his custom made TARDIS urn.

Only Kevin "Wash" knows how much bigger it is on the inside, or how big the pool in the library is, but he is where he wanted, and hopefully starting amazing new adventures.

Thank you to everyone who has shared his story.
Thank you to everyone for your amazing show of support for his family.
Thank you to his fellow Browncoats for carrying him, and thank you to his Whovian brethren and fellow geeks (and CF4L) to help make sure his final wishes would be carried out.

His energy was only in this form for 28 short years, but his love touched the world.

I'm not sure what his next regeneration would look like (he'd hope for Ginger too) but I know he'd tell me, "Shh, Spoilers."

You are now a Leaf on the Wind Wash; we will watch how you soar.

Waiting on the Giggle Loop

Hard morning.

First Monday; first start of a week (and New Year) without the man I expected to spend my life with.

I'm hoping to bring him home today.

I feel too young today. Too young, too hurt.

It's like the most perverted cultural opposite; this time I will be carrying his ashes over our threshold.

How does one even prepare for that moment?

I've been trying to be/sleep at home more. Some nights I can do it, some nights I cannot.

It hurt waking up today.

It hurt to hear the kitties cry. They have food, water, litter.

They just miss their Dad. I do too.

Aelphie and I had each other for a few years before Wash came around. It took her most of a year to even accept him.

Leto has only EVER known life with his dad. His whole existence has been keeping his dad company through the day. It hurts to see them confused and not have the words to let them know he is not coming back.

I have good moments and bad. Good minutes, bad hours.

I hear the ticking of Wash's pocketwatch. I've been keeping it wound for him.

Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick.

One, two, three, four.

He still carries my heartbeat.

I'm wondering if I should watch Firefly, BSG, Doctor Who, or Torchwood for him today.

Unworthy

Wash's TARDIS custom urn arrived.

It's everything he dreamed of.

The smallest way we can say thank you;